jordan.

So this will be a long post because I went to Jordan this week! It was so fun and so nice not to have school. But we were go go go and so tired by the end. We were not allowed to drink tap water or eat foods that we didn't peel ourselves. We had a lot of precautions. They didn't want anyone to get sick because Jordan is not as clean. They said most of the public bathrooms wouldn't have toilet paper and that there would be a charge but that never happened to me. Monday:

Our tour guide the whole trip, his name is eead (no idea how he spells his name), he is so funny.

Monday morning we left bright and early. We drove less than an hour to the border where we had to check in. It took a while to cross. We then drove to Mt. Nebo. Mt. Nebo had a really pretty view where our teachers taught us. This is where the memorial of Moses is as he viewed the Land of Canaan.

Awk door pics.

These boys loved us.

Madaba was a fun city with very friendly people. We visited the church where the Byzantine mosaic map of the Holy Land. It was pretty cool. 

We drove a few hours to Petra. We were all so tired. When we got to our hotel (La Maison Hotel) there was a bunch of guys on drums playing music. They served juice and pita bread as we got off the bus. I have never felt so welcomed in my life. It was great. We then went across the street where the chef was and he took the lamb out of the ground haha it was great. Dinner was so good. Monday night was amazing. We spent $17 to go to Petra at night. Mostly everyone went and it was amazing!! Seriously words can't describe how cool it was. There was a guy playing drums and a flute. It was so pretty with all the candles. We were the first byu group to do this. The stars were so bright and pretty. We all cuddled together and listened to the guy. Walking down there was just so fun and peaceful. Nothing like it. As we walked to through the narrow walls of Petra, when I saw the treasury I about freaked. Petra really is one of the 7 wonders of the world. a m a z i n g.

My ticket.

See the elephants?

The treasury and camels.

On top of the "high place"

The cutest little boy.

The Monastery.

Genie pants.

Donkey.

He is just enjoying life.

Lunch with Brig.

Riding camels.

Love them.

So honestly Petra needs it's own post because that's how great it was. It was my most favorite day ever. Sorry for all the pictures, I just couldn't help myself. The day started off really early and really cold, which was very surprising. It was so amazing to see it in daylight. Our tour guide talked to us for a little and then we got the whole day to ourselves to explore Petra. The Treasury tomb is amazing. The camels were so cute. We started the day with the hike to the "high place". There were many stairs but it was worth it. There were about 700 steps. This was a great view of Petra. Next we walked down and it was just Hayley and I. We explored a little. We went to another huge tomb. There are lots of little vendors of Bedouins trying to sell you stuff. There was this cute little lady so I bought something from her. But everyone was so nice and there was the CUTEST little kids. I was dying. We went to the bathroom and noticed our matching genie pants in the crotch and it was the funniest moment ever. The lady working at the bathrooms noticed and was laughing at us and offered us a needle but we didn't have thread. We all just couldn't stop laughing. It was just great. The whole rest of the day I tried to walk behind people or walked like a penguin. It was hilarious. Our rips were HUGE. I need to sew that back up here at the center. We ran into some peeps and walked up to the monastery with them. This was also a climb. I definitely got my work out for the day. The Monastery was even larger than the treasury and we got to go inside. It was pretty cool. I got to sit on a donkey for free for a pic. The little boy was so nice. The people there were the nicest people I have met. They lived there in like caves at Petra. How cool is that? You could just tell a big difference how the people were there than in Jerusalem. We talked to some people and bought some things. We then had lunch at the Basin Restaurant. It was way good. We then road camels from there back to the treasury for like $15. It was so worth it. It was about a mile. Hayley, Lydia and I all went together. It was so fun/funny. The camels would gallop and we were going so fast and bouncing up and down hahaha. I was so sore the next day. We got some pics in front of the treasury. And then we made some really good friends with the kids there. Sister Nickel told us not to be friends with them cause then we will feel pressured into buying stuff but we didn't listen. We arm wrestled them, taught them handshakes and just laughed with them. It was probs my fav part of petra to be honest. I love children and getting to know them. Their lives are so different from mine and I wish I could spend at least a week just in Petra. We spent just an hour in front of the treasury talking to them. They loved us. the boys would call us sexy and so I taught them to say sassy instead of sexy hahah. Everyone from our group was then there and it was just so much fun. The people wanted four people to get on a camel and they tried SO hard to get Larson on the neck of the camel and it was sooooo funny, haha I have it on video. Then a man offered me to get on a camel for a picture for free. So I did. And a guy standing there was offering me 12 camels for me hahaha. He kept asking if I was free. I told him I had a boyfriend and he said that he had a girlfriend and that it didn't matter. The guys there have multiple wives. Haha he really wanted to marry me. It was pretty funny. Walking out of petra was very sad. I really did leave my heart in Petra.

A cool hipster shop.

We were all so tired from walking and hiking all day so it was nice that we had a 3 hour bus ride. We got to our hotel called Belle Vue Hotel in Amman. Amman is a big city and is the capital of Jordan. Anna was my roommate and our room was SO nice! I loved our view of the city. It was the royal suite, we had a nice bathroom, kitchen and living room. We then ate dinner and went out to "Rainbow Road". They were saying it was really cool, but it really wasn't all that cool...haha. We got ice cream and that was super yummy. They warned us to be more careful, and to always have a guy with us. I did notice the guys were more creepy. Jordan is a little bit more sketch. There was a lot of cars with two guys chillin there parked just staring at people. It was weird.

Wednesday we went to Citadel and a museum. It included ruins from the Old Testament Ammonites, the Byzantine period, and the Roman Empire. We saw the remains of columns to a Roman temple of Hercules. The museum was pretty cool too. The weather was perfect outside.

                        

Next we went to the Jabbok River. It was a really polluted river with trash surrounding it. But we sat down and had a spiritual talk. The Jabbok River is a really cool place where Jacob wrestled with an angel. We talked about wrestling with the natural man and overcoming the natural man. It was so peaceful and the Spirit was so strong. 

We ate lunch at the best place ever called the Green Valley Restaurant. They had the best bread that they serve warm. They had different dips to try and they also had kabob. 

Nate won the race.

I love little kids.

Meet multi direction.

Our next stop was Jerash. This place was awesome. It had amazing ruins. There was a hippodrome which horses used to race there, but we had our own little race. The guys ran and then the girls ran. It was so much fun. We then went to roman theater and it was sweet. There were bag pipes greeting us. Heather from our group got to sing and it sounded great. You could here her even without a microphone. And then we all sang. We then got up and danced and it was so much fun. We make chaos where ever we go. I love it. So many mormons. Our tour guide talked for a little then we got to go explore. We took pictures and go to look around. It was sweet.

Roommates, Rachel and Laura.

We then went to was the Royal Automobile Museum which was pretty cool. I'm not into cars but some were really cool. I thought it was interesting how much Jordan worships their king. We definitely don't worship Obama. ha.

We then had dinner and then free time the whole night. So we went to the super nice mall in Amman. There was an h&m there and a few other stores I knew. It was a fun night. We got ice cream there and got fresh squeezed juice by our hotel. 

Thursday morning I had an interesting experience with the shower. Only freezing water was coming out and so I was just putting me hair under it and then brown water started coming out...and so I had 4 huge water bottles they gave us so I poured that water over me. Haha It was quite the experience. On our last day we went to King Abdullah I Mosque. It was super sweet. The girls had to be fully covered so we wore scarves on our heads and they gave us robs to wear over our clothes. We had to take off our shoes as we went inside. Our tour guide is muslim and talked about what they do in the Mosque and it was all very interesting. He talked about the call to prayer. They pray 5 times a day and he told us what they do for it. It was very beautiful inside. It was really fun dressing up, I think all the girls enjoyed it.

Next we stopped at the Jordan Museum. It just opened so we were the first byu group to go through it. I enjoyed it, it wasn't super big, which I liked. They had some of the dead sea scrolls, that was really cool to look at. We also got our names in different languages.

The last stop of our trip was the River Jordan, where Christ was baptized. We took a little walk to get down to the river. It was beautiful. The water was a lot dirtier than I expected. I can't believe I got to go there. It is unbelievable. We were on the palestinian side, and the other side was the jewish side. It was pretty crazy. People were getting baptized so that was pretty cool. We sat by the water and read our scriptures. Right when Brother woods mentioned this scripture, "And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he say the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him" -Matt 3:16, we saw doves flying above us. It was the coolest thing. I felt the spirit so strong there. We got to dip our feet in. It was really muddy.

Overall I loved the trip. I wish I could go back. Petra was definitely my favorite. The people were so nice there. It was so nice to have a break from school. It is really weird to go on trips while you are basically on one. The Jerusalem Center feels like home now though. We were SO tired by the end of the trip. We were go go go all the time. We were so busy but it was worth it.